The Dream
by AwayFromHere
Summary: Bella suddenly wakes up to find that it was all a dream: Edward, Forks, everything. She's devastated that none of it ever happened, and that she'll never get to find her Edward, or will she?
1. Chapter 1

_Hi! Well this is my first fan-fic so I hope it's not too bad. Please comment with ANYTHING.  
Thanks, AwayFromHere._

The Dream:

Chapter I

Edward, in his usual breathtaking grace, jumped through my window, crossed the floor in two paces and kissed me lightly, hands on my waist.

"Hello beautiful, I missed you." He said, smiling.

"Me too." I mumbled into his chest.

We stood like that for a long time, but as usual, not long enough. All too soon, Edward heard Charlie come up the stairs to make sure I was asleep. I dove into bed, Edward vanishing. I pulled the covers over myself, rolled so my back was to the door, and closed my eyes, just as Charlie opened the door. I tried to breathe evenly, concentrating hard on the darkness behind my eyelids. Eventually Charlie shut the door, and I heard him move on to his room at the end of the hall. I heard Edward laugh, as he suddenly appeared out of the darkness and climbed into bed with me.

"What?" I asked, smiling up at him.

"You really are a bad actress, you know?" He said jokingly. "No one sleeps with their eyes cemented shut."

"Humph!" I hit him lightly on the shoulder and moved closer to him.

"Sleep now my Bella, you've got finals tomorrow"

"Ugh. Even if I sleep for 1000 hours I'm still going to fail" and it doesn't matter anyways, I thought to myself. I'd be with Edward for the rest of forever; there would always be time to do these things later.

As though he could read my thoughts he said; "School is important Bella, it's quintessentially human. You'll thank me one day, and University will be a good experience for you."

"Sure, sure." I said.

I sighed: school. It just seemed so intensely trivial to me—most human things did these days—in comparison to what would happen after graduation, when my new life could finally begin. It seemed important to Edward though, so I had studied for finals like a good girl.

He laughed softly, and started singing my lullaby. As though it triggered some sort of sleep medication embedded in my brain, my eyelids immediately started to droop.

"OK, fine." I said sleepily, "I _will _go to sleep."

Edward laughed again, softly as to not break his humming, and stroked my hair.

I fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!

My alarm clock wrenched me violently out of what had been a very good dream. I automatically rolled over, groaning, and pressed the sleep button.

'Just ten more minutes.' I thought to myself.

I was just about to slip back to under when I thought of something that did the job of my alarm clock much more effectively. I sat bolt upright, staring around wide eyed. I sat there, looking dumb-struck at my surroundings. My room was exactly the same as I'd left it, only so very, very wrong. This was my room in Phoenix. I shouldn't be in Phoenix. Something else was also very wrong. More so, really; where was Edward? There was no evidence of his presence at all. No wonderfully sweet smell, no crumple in the sheets beside me where he usually was. What was going on?? Something was very wrong. I got out of bed slowly and walked towards the window. I pulled on the string and the white blind shot up. I looked out onto the backyard of my Phoenix home. There were the cactuses, about the only thing Renée had succeeded in growing, and the red tinged rock characteristic of this part of the world. I pinched myself. It hurt. I did it harder. It hurt more. Something was most definitely very wrong.

I turned around and, still very slowly in case I hurt myself in my clearly addled state, walked to my door. I opened it and walked down the hall to the stairs and descended, all as though in a trance. I walked through to the kitchen, and realized that Renée was cooking. Even in my trance like state, there was a little part of me that jumped up at this and went 'Oh dear!'

"Hi mom?" I ventured

She turned and smiled at me. "Oh hi, Bells. I thought I'd make omelettes for breakfast. Do you have time to eat before school?"

I paused, seriously confused.

"You alright honey?"

"Um...yeah. Yeah, I have time." A thought came to me. "Mom, where's Phil?"

"Phil?" She asked, frowning. "Who's Phil?"

Alarm bells sounded in my head. _What?!_ No Phil meant that I wasn't going to Forks. _What_ was going on?

"Oh, um..." I managed to get out.

"Bella hon, are you sure you're alright?"

"Uh, yeah." I said again. "I'll just, um...go change." I mumbled.

I walked back up to my room, faster this time. I was starting to panic. What was happening? Where was Edward? Why was I in Phoenix? Where was Phil? As seemed the inevitable pattern in my life, the questions started piling exponentially faster than I could answer them.

'OK." I thought to myself, 'Breath.'

There had to be some logical explanation for all this. Had I gone into some sort of coma? No, Renée would have said something about my abrupt revival. Did I have amnesia? That seemed slightly more plausible, but that wouldn't explain why Renée didn't even know who Phil was, and wouldn't I have noticed earlyer?

I walked over to my desk to check the date. January 17th. That was the day that I was supposed to go to Forks in my...I gasped...

"Oh!' My hand flew to my mouth. Oh no, no, no, no, no. I sat-collapsed onto my bed, I couldn't think it, I just couldn't. It was as though somebody had died. To think the words would be to seal it, to make it real.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, barely registering my alarm clock going off again. I didn't move, and it eventually beeped itself out. It had seemed so, so...real, so vivid, the people, the passing of time, everything. I looked out the window, absolutely devastated by the sunny blue sky. I had fallen asleep yesterday, and had a dream. It had all been a dream. All of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Looking back on that first day, I'm still not sure how I got through it. I still don't remember much. I nearly failed my finals that much I do remember. I had searched high and low for some evidence of _anything_. Anything at all. I, invariably, found nothing. I had even phoned Charlie. He seemed pleased enough to hear from me, surprised that I'd called so out of the blue. This meant, to my dismay, that I apparently didn't have an excuse for going over there any time soon.

The weeks had passed, and it was now July. July in Phoenix was always slightly painful. It was sweltering and there was (I rather thought this was to smite me) a marked lack of rain, even for Phoenix. In the last month and a bit, I had come to terms with the fact that it was a dream. Of course, come to terms with and accept are two _very_ different things. I was still positive something existed. I could not, would never, accept the fact that that wonderful being, my other half, was merely a figment of my imagination. I was neither that inventive nor, previous to now at any rate, that passionate.

I had spent allot of time thinking, and reading lately. Besides the usual Transylvanian stuff, I could find no evidence of any vampires, ever. The only thing that gave me hope, what little there could be, was the City of Volterra. One day, while staring at a map of Italy, my eyes gazed over the name, and my heart leapt. I went quickly to look it up on the internet. It looked exactly like it had in my dream. Even the bell tower where I had run in to...him (I still couldn't bring myself to even think his name) was there. It was as though someone had gone into my brain and taken pictures. It was seriously unnerving. I couldn't explain it; I had never ever, ever been to Italy, let alone Volterra. That was my hope, my one, tiny, inkling of hope and, as I looked out the window at the blazing Phoenix sun, it felt like it was all I had.

I had my doubts though, (even though I cringed away from them, I would not subject myself to complete devastation just yet) what if I had simply seen it in a movie, and hadn't remembered, only to have it come up in my subconscious. 

I sat at my desk, doing nothing in particular. I was antsy again and all of a sudden, very claustrophobic. I had to get out of the house. I walked quickly out of my room and down the stairs.

"What are you up to today, Bells?" My mother's voice came from the living room where she was reading.

"Uhh, I think I'll just go walking for a while. Nothing too exciting."

"Alright well, be careful then." She called out as I walked on.

"I will!" What was I going to do, get kidnapped?

I tripped on the doorframe on my way out. OK fine, maybe she had a point. I walked down the block, on auto-pilot, turning right, then right again, not really registering where I was going. It annoyed me, really. All it was, was a dream. It was only a dream, albeit an exceptionally complex and real dream, but a dream all the same. How could it _possibly_ have such an effect on me? It was stupid, _I _was being stupid. I should just get over it and get on with things. Nothing had happened, I really should just get on with life. Stupid... Maybe there was something wrong with me? They say your brain works oddly in times of stress, but I couldn't think of anything that had happened or foreseeably would, that amounted to any kind of stress worth this sort of reaction. I shook my head as though the thoughts would fly out of my ears and leave me alone. I will stop dwelling on this, I told myself. I had to, for my own sanity. So I resolved, if not to forget about it, but to leave it behind, in the past, to remember it as a dream, and _only _as a dream. You never know, maybe I'd write a book about it. It was intricate enough, at any rate.

I stopped walking then, suddenly realizing where I was. I stood, blinking, looking up at my old dance studio, thoroughly un-burnt. In the split second when I realized this, I felt broken: it really hadn't happened. Then, of course, I was furious with myself. Hadn't I _just_ resolved to not be so attached to this?

I wheeled around on my heel, swaying slightly (always keep both feet on the ground!), and stomped off in the opposite direction. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Utterly ridiculous, I kept thinking. Eventually I made it to the street with my favourite café. Well, more of a diner really. I walked into Sam's—I had stopped stomping, it really _was_ too hot for any kind of physical exertion—and took my seat by the window. I liked Sam's because it was original, seemingly untouched since the 1960s. It reminded me of a more authentic A&W. The black and white tiled linoleum floor was cracked, along with the red leather on the stools and booths, where I sat now. The waitress walked over, in her light turquoise outfit and I ordered a Coke, with extra ice.

As I waited for my Coke I stared aimlessly out the window, thinking of nothing in particular, and listening to snippets of conversations from those around me. The family in the booth in front of me munched on what looked like chicken strips and milkshakes; I could see their reflection in the window, while the two youngest 

children bickered over the red striped straw. The two older women behind me were talking of the weather. I wondered absently if that was the default topic of conversation once you hit 50.

"Did you hear?" The one woman asked, "There's going to be a storm."

"A big one, I heard." The other one said. "That weather man on channel 3, what's his name, you know, the good looking one, said it was coming off the mountains."

"Oooh yes, yes. My son, the mechanic you know, called me earlier from wherever he was and said that the clouds were nearly purple, it was so bad."

"Mmm, well I heard that they'd had thunder and lightning for the last few days, ooh real bad, up in..."

I drowned them out as they continued to one up each other on the weather, as the waitress brought me my Coke.

"Thanks..." I mumbled, as she set it down, leaving dark finger prints against the frosty glass.

I fiddled with the straw for a while, and continued staring out the window. The old women seemed to be right, in the distance I could see what looked unmistakably like a storm brewing. I took a sip of my Coke and hiccupped. I sighed and looked out the window again, now deciding to stare at the bookstore across the street to see if any of the books in the window looked any good. A few did, and I made a mental note to go and look in when I felt like leaving.

I stayed like that for a very long time, alternately staring off, people watching out the window, and listening in on the mundane lives of my fellow diners. I was half way through my third Coke when I noticed how dark it had gotten. I jumped. How long had I been out? Renée would be getting worried. I looked at my watch, it was only 3 o'clock. Must be the storm then. I looked at the sky and, sure enough, the sky was painted a very bruised and broiling purple. It looked like something very big had beaten it up very badly. As though it had read my thoughts, a deep cut then appeared, right down the middle, and it poured. Clearly, all those weeks without rain had been piling up somewhere, and now they unleashed in torrents, over enthusiastic from having been pent up so long. In no time the grates in the road blocked up, and huge puddles formed around the curbs. Soon after came the lightning, immediately accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. It was then, as the thunder rolled, that I saw it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A silver Volvo S60R pulled up in front of the bookstore across the street. My heart leapt, and then I got annoyed again. Every time I saw a similar car I would do this, it was really getting old. I continued to stare at it though, rationalizing this by the fact that I had already over-stared everything else in the last three hours that I had been here and it was something new to look at.

It was then that he stepped out into the downpour, and my heart just about stopped. Even in this light his bronze hair shone. He was wearing dark jeans, a beige sweater with a white collared shirt underneath. Exactly the outfit he'd worn when we'd gone out for Italian, that night in Port Angeles. Without thinking, without breathing even, I slapped down a bill on the table and bolted out into the storm.

I was in shorts and a tank top, and was immediately soaked to the bone, but I noticed none of this. He disappeared into the bookshop. I sprinted across the street, causing several irate drivers to honk at me and screech their brakes. Again, I noticed nothing. I jumped onto the curb, swung the door of the bookshop open, and flew inside. A small part of my brain was still present enough to commend myself on not tripping throughout that whole thing. The door shut behind me, being slammed by the wind. The bell at the top jingled wildly and the man at the counter looked over in my direction.

And then I saw him. He was standing at the end of the Classics isle, staring straight at me. Our eyes met, and as I looked into his beautiful topaz ones, he smiled his crooked smile that I loved.

"Edward?" I gasped.

His smile widened, "My Bella."

_Ok so, some of the reviewers seemed slightly confused on a few things so changed a bit around and I hope this clarifies it.  
Also, Edward KNEW who Bella was. I'm not too sure why yet, I might write it from his point of view later if need be.  
-AwayFromHere._


End file.
